


I Wanna Love You

by dean_n_pie



Series: FWB-verse [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, College, F/M, Friends With Benefits, M/M, eventually
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-25
Updated: 2015-02-25
Packaged: 2018-03-15 00:46:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3431825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dean_n_pie/pseuds/dean_n_pie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam and Gabriel made a pact when they first started the whole friends-with-benefits thing: no feelings. Lust was okay, sure, but love was out of the question. Things go alright for a while, and then there is The Incident.</p><p>Gabriel knew he should have seen it coming.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Wanna Love You

**Author's Note:**

> based on a prompt given to me by sams-hams on tumblr (LOOK WHAT YOU'VE DONE)
> 
> also there will be a sequel but be patient i'm busy ok (#philosophypapersgalore)

There had been one rule between them. It was just sex. Hell, they’d even laid it out (haha. laid, get it?) between them at the start.

"If we’re gonna do this whole friends-with-benefits thing, we should probably cover our asses so things don’t go bad later on," Sam said, shifting uncomfortably. Gabriel rolled his eyes, patting him on the arm.

"Sam, it’s not that difficult, it’s just sex, okay? We don’t need a list of rules." Gabriel broke off, tilting his head at Sam curiously. "Unless that’s something you’re into, I could-"

"No!" Sam blushed, turning away. "I just mean like - if one of us starts having feelings…" he trailed off, looking at Gabriel meaningfully.

"Oh, the non-sexy sex feelings?" Gabriel nodded teasingly. "Bad idea. Okay, so rule one - sex only. If anything lovey-dovey comes into play at all, we cut it off."

"Okay."

"Aw. Sammy, do you think you’re gonna fall in love with me? I’m flattered, honestly -"

"Oh, shut up." Sam shoved Gabriel’s arm lightly, laughing. "I couldn’t ever fall for someone so tiny, trust me."

Gabriel laughed too, shoving Sam back. “Too bad,” he sighed. ” We could have had a torrid romance. You know how I am with the drama.”

The agreement lay settled between them, as Gabriel stretched out on his back and pulled Sam down into a harsh kiss.  
—

The FWB thing was going a lot better than Gabriel had expected. He was getting laid regularly, and it didn’t hurt that Sam was kind of gorgeous either. Or that he knew exactly how to make Gabriel quiver with need. That was just an added bonus.

The one rule still stuck out in the back of his head, but he let it slide a bit. After all, those tugs on his heart he felt when Sam looked at him? Nothing more than arousal, he was almost certain. Anyway, why mention something like that, when it wasn’t a big deal? He’d just end up losing sex, and he wasn’t about to go doing that.

He just ignored it and went about daily business, working down at Missouri Mosely’s bakery and calling Sam a couple times a week. Mercifully their friendship hadn’t suffered either, and they didn’t have sex all the time. They could still get together and watch a movie, throw popcorn at each other and leave before anything else happened.

In short, Gabriel thought, it was the perfect arrangement.

At least, that’s what he thought until that one thing had happened.

He liked to refer to it as “The Incident”, quotes and caps included. “The Incident” being that one time when he had looked into Sam’s eyes after sex and felt his heart grow a couple sizes. At the time he’d just blamed it on the afterglow, but when a week had passed and he couldn't think of Sam’s smile without feeling warm and tingly all over, he knew he had to do something.

Not anything that would end up with Sam leaving, of course. Out of the picture. Even though the one rule still blared glaringly whenever Gabriel decided to let himself think about it too much. So he’d ended up fucking some random girl, and didn’t think about Sam, not even for half-a-second, and thought everything was okay.

Things went smoothly again, Gabriel gasping out pleas into Sam’s neck on a regular schedule, and Sam leaving marks on Gabriel’s body like it was his. And if Gabriel started feeling warm whenever he was around Sam (it’s just because the kid is a fucking furnace, not because his eyes are beautiful and look at me like I’m worthy of him), he didn’t let it show.

It took another couple of weeks and a couple of near misses (usually gasped out into Sam’s shoulder or his hair while his fingers were twisting into the sheets in pleasure) before Gabriel acknowledged that there was a problem.

But of course he didn’t confront it, no, no. He pushed it away and let it sit there, because letting it out would mean the end of sex with Sam, and Gabriel’d become dependent on that in a way he could never have expected. Although, looking back? Obvious as hell. Friends to FWB was such a common trope, Gabriel probably should have seen something like this coming.

(In a movie, though, Sam would feel the same. Too bad.)

Gabriel had made up his mind to finally, finally talk to Sam that weekend, deciding to come clean and put it all on the line. It was just a simple, “hey, I think I like you as something more than friends, maybe, wanna go out sometime? and like, for real?” but it still seemed like a daunting task. Plus, there was no way to predict Sam’s answer, but Gabriel could dream.

They also hadn’t had sex in a while, and Gabriel was feeling the itch. It wasn’t uncomfortable or particularly hard to ignore, but it did make his palms sweat with anticipation at seeing Sam.

One little text had been enough - hey, can we meet this weekend? - and Gabriel had just agreed. Sam told him to come over to his room sometime after 5, and Gabriel actually put it in his calendar this time.

The rest of the week went by quickly, but then Saturday dragged on and on. Not soon enough, it was 5:30 and Gabriel was stepping out of the door. He walked quickly across the quad to get to Sam’s, letting himself in and calling out a greeting.

Sam came walking in from the kitchen with a goofy smile on his face and tossed a lemonade to Gabriel. “Hey yourself.”

Gabriel grabbed the lemonade out of the air and almost attacked it - he had an obsession, so what? Perfectly healthy stuff, lemonade. It had fruit in it. And Vitamin C, yeah?

He took a swig while Sam came over to him, eyes lighting up. “Been a while, Samsquatch.”

"Well, finals are coming up, so." Sam sat down at the table, and Gabriel followed suit. His nervous energy spiked up when Sam glanced away for a moment, leaning forward.

"Sam, there’s something I-"

"Can I ask you something-"

They both stopped talking, giving an almost awkward chuckle. Gabriel looked over at Sam and motioned for him to continue, taking another drink of the lemonade. It tasted almost as sweet as Sam’s mouth.

"So. This whole friends-with-benefits thing? We still good?" Gabriel nodded, confused. Sam cleared his throat again, looking suddenly nervous. Gabriel’s breath quickened, and he gripped the can of lemonade tighter. There was a strange look in Sam’s eyes, one he couldn’t make out. Sam took a deep breath and continued quickly, almost like he was scared of Gabriel’s reaction.

"I met this girl a couple weeks back. She’s extremely smart, and funny, and she wants to go to Stanford too, like me. I think - I want to try dating her, see if it goes anywhere. So, I think we’ve gotta end this arrangement we have." Sam said it all so rehearsed, like he’d been waiting to use the speech for a while now.

At first it didn’t process. Gabriel kept smiling, running it through his head over and over until he couldn’t avoid saying anything for any longer. Sam’s eyes were starting to get worried again, and Gabriel let out a short laugh.

No reason for Sam to know it felt like his insides were ripping apart.

"Sammy, that’s all? I thought you were gonna say you had a terminal illness or something." His own voice sounded off, and it seemed like Sam could tell too. "That’s great."

He forced a casual smile, trying to ignore the feeling of his heart sinking down, down, lower than his stomach and coming to rest somewhere on the floor near his feet. Sam didn’t look convinced though, and even raised an eyebrow at Gabriel’s words.

"Gabe, are you sure -" Gabriel cut him off with a wave of his hand.

"Hey, you wanna go get with the girl of your dreams, be my guest. I just better be the best man at the wedding." Gabriel stopped talking after that, worried his voice was gonna crack and give up the game. He just nodded while Sam babbled on about her (her name was Jess, Jessica Moore, and her favorite color was red, and she wanted to go to med school, med school, can you believe it Gabe, and Stanford is her first choice for grad schools too, and did I mention that she has a dog?) trying not to crack. Eventually it became too much and he stood, barely able to keep it together.

Jesus, he’d had it worse than he thought. It had been so much worse than he thought. He thought he could keep it back to a simple desire thing, but whatever this was? So much bigger. This was maybe just shy of love, if it hadn’t already become that. And there was only so much he could stomach before he felt like crying all over again.

"Hey, Sam, I would love to stay and chat, really - but like you said, finals…" Gabriel went over and grabbed his coat, not missing the frown that crossed Sam’s face.

"Gabe, are you sure you’re okay?" Sam asked, concerned. "You’ve just - you’re being really quiet and, I dunno, subdued?"

Gabriel forced another laugh, thinking wryly that none of it should have fooled Sam. Maybe if it had been before Jessica, Sam would have seen completely through his bullshit and almost coaxed Gabriel into telling him.

Gabriel’s life was made of maybes and almosts.

"I’m fine, Sam, just worried about the 1162 final. Lerman isn’t gonna make the test easy, you know." Trying to play it off, he reached up and ruffled Sam’s hair. "Not all of us were gifted with mathematical abilities, nerd."

Sam pushed his arm away and laughed too, rolling his eyes. “Whatever, shortstack.”

Gabriel was almost out the door when Sam leaned out after him. “Hey, hold on - what was it you were gonna tell me earlier?”

There was an awkward silence for the few moments it took Gabriel to compose himself. “Ah, nothing. Can’t even remember it now. Must not have been that important, huh?” He smiled once more at Sam and turned away, biting his lip in hopes that the pain would stave off the tears that were about to fall. “It was nothing,” he whispered to himself as he walked off. Strangely enough, the sound of Sam’s door clicking shut was extremely similar to the sound of his heart cracking.

It took forever to get back to his own dorm, and he thanked whatever gods existed that he had a single that year. Nothing was stopping him from curling up on his bed and burrowing away from the world. Not pride, not a stupid sense of masculinity, not a nosy roommate.

It sucked because the tears wouldn’t come. He just stared at the wall and felt shitty. Maybe if the tears would come some of that feeling would leave - but he wouldn’t know, because no tears would come.

He knew that this would happen. Or something like it. It happened in all those movies, all those romance novels that Gabriel refused to admit he read. Sam used to tease him about it.

But in the movies, in the books… they have happy endings. Well, Sam’s got a happy ending waiting for him. That should have been enough for Gabriel. He could move on, find someone else to fall in love with, and learn to let go.

Too bad he had no desire too. Sam was it for him, and now he’d lost him. No one’s fault, just Gabriel’s for falling for him in the first place.

The tears didn’t come that night and they didn’t come the next either. Gabriel gave up on them altogether.

But he couldn’t shake the wish that it was a movie. Because then Sam would have loved him back.


End file.
